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Anglican Covenant resolutions addressed at public hearing

By Matthew Davies

Posted Jul 7, 2012

[Episcopal News Service] General Convention’s legislative committee on World Mission heard public testimony July 6 on eight resolutions regarding Anglican Communion relationships and the Anglican Covenant, a document that supporters say offers a way to bind Anglicans globally across cultural and theological differences.

The resolutions range from rejecting to approving the covenant, with one proposing a via media approach, urging continued study and committing the church to ongoing participation in the process. All eight resolutions affirm the Episcopal Church’s membership in and commitment to the Anglican Communion.

The first resolution to emerge was A126, submitted by the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council, which would have the church say it is “unable to adopt the Anglican Covenant in its present form.” Another council resolution (A145) expresses gratitude to those who have worked on drafting the covenant and commits the church to continued dialogue and participation in the Anglican Communion.

Then in April, another two resolutions were filed.

Resolution B006, proposed by Bishop John Bauerschmidt of Tennessee and endorsed by 10 other bishops, asks the church to affirm and adopt the covenant.

At the July 6 hearing, Bauerschmidt said his resolution commits the church “to continue the process” and to discern how to modify the covenant according to the Episcopal Church’s constitutions and canons. “This is necessary if we are really seeking as a communion to be of one mind and one heart and to share a common life,” he said. “We have seen how much damage has been done in the Episcopal Church in the absence of a process to resolve widely disputed questions.”

The Rev. Carola von Wrangel, a deputy from the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, also spoke in favor of B006. “We are part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. I believe the covenant will strengthen the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church. How do we stay at the table together?

Wrangel said her congregation at Christ-the-King in Frankfurt, Germany, represents 35 different countries. “The issues that are dividing us are the issues that are dividing my parish. I believe the covenant will help us stay together, not walk away from one another.”

Resolution B005, proposed by Connecticut Bishop Ian Douglas and backed by two other bishops, would encourage the church to embrace the preamble and first three sections of the four-section document. This, Douglas told ENS, would ensure that the church does not remove itself from the ongoing covenant process.

The document’s fourth section, which outlines a disciplinary method for resolving disputes in the communion, has been the covenant’s main sticking point.

Other proposed resolutions include D006, which calls on the church to decline to adopt the covenant, saying that after extensive study the church is “unable to reach a clear consensus and is therefore unwilling to continue expending funds, time and energy on this proposed covenant.” Instead, the resolution asks the Episcopal Church to commit itself to “A Covenant for Communion in Mission,” developed by the Inter Anglican Standing Commission on Mission and Evangelism, “so that provinces of the Anglican Communion can be effective in promoting God’s presence and healing to those in our world that are broken and disenfranchised,” according to the proposed text.

Another resolution (D007) also urges the church to decline to adopt to the covenant, saying it is “contrary to Anglican ecclesiology and tradition and to the best interests of the Anglican Communion.”

The Rev. Susan Russell, deputy from Los Angeles, proposed D007. “The covenant attempts to create a centralized authority … that inhibits the church to pursue the gospel mission,” she said. “Scripture and tradition tell us to value the idea of a covenant and reason tells us to reject it. Urge to choose communion over covenant and to say no to this ill-conceived proposal.”

Colorado deputy and Executive Council member Lelanda Lee spoke in favor of D007 because she said that the covenant “does not do the things it was set out to do when it was first drafted and section 4 is punitive to anyone who would be brothers and sisters.”

Lay Deputy Mary Reorich from Pennsylvania, speaking to D007, said the covenant “has served to divide. [It] will be used in unanticipated ways to interfere … This is not helping or encouraging for bonds of affection. I did not join a covenanted or confessional church nor do I want to go on to join such a church.”

Resolution D008 doesn’t specifically mention the covenant, but it is modeled on legislation adopted by several Church of England dioceses that have opposed adopting the covenant.

D008 calls on the church “to find ways to maintain and reinforce strong links across the world-wide Anglican Communion” and to deepen its involvement in existing communion ministries and networks, especially Continuing Indaba, which is exploring ways of communicating across different contexts.

The Rev. Tobias Haller, a deputy from New York who proposed D008, has served on the reference group for Continuing Inbada. He said that whether or not the church adopts the covenant, “we are Anglicans.”

Continuing Indaba, he said, helps the Anglican Communion “not to let disagreements disable us but to empower us. I urge you to adopt this resolution or at least incorporate this language into whatever resolution the committee recommends.”

Lay Deputy Samantha Cutlip from Western New York spoke in favor of Resolution D046, which calls the covenant “moot” and asks the church to “re-affirm the Episcopal Church’s commitment to historical principles of Anglican Christianity …”

“If we vote in favor [of the covenant] we will only further divide ourselves,” she said. “We can only learn more from one another if we move forward in bonds of affection.”

Another resolution (C115) proposed by the Diocese of Easton encourages further study and reflection on the proposed Anglican Covenant during the next triennium. Public testimony on that resolution will be heard on July 9.

The World Mission committee will discuss the testimony from the hearings and consider all the resolutions that have been proposed before recommending legislation to the houses of General Convention.

The Anglican Covenant first was proposed in the 2004 Windsor Report as a way that the communion and its 38 autonomous provinces might maintain unity despite differences, especially relating to biblical interpretation and human sexuality issues. The report came in the wake of the 2003 election of Gene Robinson, an openly gay priest, as bishop of New Hampshire, a development that caused some provinces to declare broken or impaired communion with the Episcopal Church. The covenant also was a response to some church leaders crossing borders into other provinces to minister to disaffected Anglicans.

Following five years of discussion and several draft versions, the final text of the covenant was sent in December 2009 to the communion’s provinces for formal consideration.

Douglas, who is co-chair of the World Mission committee, recently told ENS that the Episcopal Church has participated “at an extremely high level” in considering each draft of the covenant.

The 76th General Convention in July 2009 asked the dioceses, via Resolution D020, to study the Anglican Covenant during the 2010-2012 triennium. It also asked Executive Council to prepare a report, along with proposed draft legislation, to the 77th General Convention this year. That resolution led council to create the D020 Task Force, which released its report along with the proposed Resolution A126 in October 2011.

The Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons determined in a June 2011 report requested by the D020 Task Force that adoption of the current draft Anglican Covenant “has the potential to change the constitutional and canonical framework of TEC, particularly with respect to the autono¬my of our church, and the constitutional authority of the General Convention, bishops and dioceses.”

Resolutions A126, B005 and B006 being considered by General Convention call for the creation of a new task force that would explore the canonical changes needed if the church were to adopt the covenant in its entirety.

Some Episcopalians and Anglicans, including the Executive Council, have raised concerns about the covenant being used as an instrument of control, questioning in particular its section 4 and the dispute-resolution process contained therein. Some critics have warned that adopting the covenant could result in a two-tier communion.

“I don’t find section 4 helpful,” Douglas told ENS recently. “I think it moves the covenant from a document that is relational to one that is more juridical. I do think the first three sections are relational and missional.”

Communion-wide consideration

Throughout the Anglican Communion, seven provinces have approved or subscribed to the Anglican Covenant. They are Ireland, Mexico, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, South East Asia, Southern Cone of America, and the West Indies.

The General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church on June 8 voted against adopting the covenant.

In March, it became clear that the Church of England could not adopt the covenant in its current form when a majority of its dioceses voted the document down.

The Anglican Church of Southern Africa has adopted the document pending ratification at its next synod meeting later this year.

The Church in Wales last April gave the covenant “an amber light, rather than a green light.” The church’s governing body said it feared the recent rejection of the covenant by the Church of England jeopardized its future and clarifications about that were now needed before a decision could be made. It sent questions on the matter to the Anglican Consultative Council, the church’s main policy-making body, which meets later this year.

The Episcopal Church in the Philippines bishops have rejected the covenant and Maori action in the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia last November means that it could be rejected when it comes before the province’s General Synod in July 2012.

The Rev. Malcolm French from Anglican Church of Canada spoke at the July 6 hearing in favor of D007, noting that the Anglican Communion is a family of churches. “If we are prepared to meet, then no covenant is necessary and if we are not, then no covenant will suffice,” said French, moderator of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition. “Notionally I would have seen a problem if we had been the first church to say no, but that is not the case.”

Lionel Deimel, founder and convener of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition, said that “the underlying purpose of the covenant is to suppress change. Many promote the covenant in the name of unity but the Anglican Communion is not monolithic… We do not need other churches punishing us when we try to do justice.”

Douglas previously told ENS that “Communion is fundamentally about relationships – relationships across our differences in service to the mission of God – and not some kind of juridical or contractual or ecclesiological statement.”

— Matthew Davies is an editor/reporter for the Episcopal News Service.

Comments
(11)

Get rid of the Anglican Covenant! Clearly another way of creating the “Ins” and the “Outs”. It, along with the same sex marriage material, is one of the most prejudiced documents I’ve read in a long time. VOTE IT DOWN!

I’m not aware of the request that dioceses study the proposed Covenant during the just-ended triennium was taken seriously in my diocese and I wonder how many throughout the church might make the same observation. A very quick read of the article on the July 6 discussion leads me to think a sensible step might be to adopt Resolutions D007 and D008, thus affirming that a Covenant isn’t Anglican and that we are committed to being Anglican in deepening communion with the churches that make up the Communion.

I agree that Art. 4 is the worst part of the Covenant. I could almost support the measure that affirms only the first 3 parts. But, it is clear that Art. 4 is the heart of the thing, so Covenant supporters won’t be impressed by support for the first parts of it.

So I am back to my original position: No Covenant but the Baptismal Covenant.

As a cradle Episcopalian, with both my daughter and son-in-law priests in the Episcopal Church, I have struggled with whether “preservation” of the Anglican Communion is worth the effort. I have come to the conclusion that if the Episcopal Church is called to abandon the Second Great Commandment – “Love your neighbor as yourself” (BCP pg. 351) – then such preservation is not only not worth the effort, but would represent at the highest levels a turning away from Christ’s command to us. For example, I believe any pressure to force the Episcopal Church to treat differently the up-to-10% of its membership with different sexual orientation is pressure to break that commandment. Further, the draft Covenant uses language which leaves the document “not well defined”. That is, the wording of the draft is such that it could be interpreted to support a single segment of the Church’s vision of what is right, forcing any entity deviating from that segment’s particular view as forcibly excluded. So my conclusion is that the Anglican Covenant as drafted would not strengthen the interdependent life of the Anglican Communion, but rather strengthen those who would use such a document to punish segments of the Communion who see God’s world differently than they. If there is a need for any Covenant, I propose it contain only those words in Mark 12:29-31.

On June 11, 2012, in response to the Preludium posting. “The Scottish Episcopal Church says, “No.” Shall we join them?” by Mark Harris, on June 9, 2012, I submitted the following comment: “From the beginning my great fear was that with a covenant the Anglican Communion would no longer be bound together by mutual affection, as an instrument of God should be bound, and that with that bond replaced by a covenant the Communion would need more lawyers than priests. The ongoing arguments about its adoption has convinced me that such is the case. Accordingly, I think that proposed resolution A145 [which is printed below] should be amended to delete the third “Resolved”, which is confusing and redundant as this point was set forth clearly in the preceeding “Resolved”. In the final “Resolved”, the words “in its present form” should be deleted. With these changes, Resolution A145 should be adopted.”

I compliment Deacon Perrin on his remarks and join him in preferring “the messiness to stricty, enforced, unity”.

In plain language, I said “No” to the idea of an Anglican Covenant. I still do as emphatically as possible.

John David Spangler
Layman, Dioceses of Southern Virginia

A145 TOPIC: ANGLICAN COMMUNION — Continue Dialogue in the Anglican Communion
PROPOSER
Executive Council
RESOLUTION TEXT
Resolved, the House of _______ concurring, That this 77th General Convention
express its profound gratitude to those who so faithfully worked at producing the
Anglican Covenant; and be it further
Resolved, that The Episcopal Church commit itself to continued participation in
the wider councils of the Anglican Communion and to continued dialogue with
our brothers and sisters in other provinces to deepen understanding and to
insure the continued integrity of the Anglican Communion; and be it further
Resolved, that The Episcopal Church recommit itself to dialogue with the several
provinces when adopting innovations which may be seen as threatening to the
unity of the Communion; and be it further
Resolved, that The Episcopal Church is unable to adopt the Anglican Covenant in
its present form.

I like D007:
“That the General Convention, having prayerfully considered the merits
of the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant and believing said agreement to
be contrary to Anglican ecclesiology and tradition and to the best interests of the
Anglican Communion, respectfully decline to adopt the same.”
Vote it down!

I will be the first to admit that life would be much easier if everyone else agreed with our (The Episcopal Church’s) definition of the Anglican Communion. But life does not work that way. What is the definition of the Anglican Communion?

In 1930 Lambeth Conference adopted this self-definition: “The Anglican Communion is a fellowship … of those duly constituted dioceses, Provinces, or regional Churches in communion with the see of Canterbury, which have the following characteristics in common: … c) They are bound together not by a central legislative and executive authority, but by mutual loyalty sustained through the common counsel of the Bishops in Conference.” (Resolution 49)

Note: the Preamble to our Constitution essentially quotes this 1930 Lambeth resolution but omits the “c” clause quoted above. Thus, OUR definition of being a “constituent member of the Anglican Communion” did not include a sense of accountability to the Lambeth Conference.

The problem is that the 2003 General Convention of the Episcopal Church violated the “c” clause in that 1930 definition. We acted in a manner which clearly indicated that we were no longer bound by “the mutual loyalty sustained through the common counsel of the Bishops in Conference.” When the 1930 self-definition failed, trust was compromised. The 2008 Lambeth Conference turned inward – its historic role of sustaining mutual loyalty no longer viable.

The wider Communion could have left things there, thereby accepting this new self-definition (1930 minus the “c” clause). Alternatively, it could craft something to augment it as recommended by the 2004 Windsor report. It chose the latter course of action. Furthermore, many argue that the proposed Anglican Covenant is yet another step towards a genuine, Christ-centered, biblical concept of communion rooted in our understanding of covenant which naturally flows from Lambeth 1867 and the self-definition put forward by Lambeth 1930. In other words our “new” self-definition (written by representatives from a broad spectrum of the Communion) continues to evolve.

The Anglican Covenant is a poorly written and poorly conceived attempt to bring commonality to the Church by fiat. It could be used by various churches as a bludgeon against others to toe a political agenda that is not in-keeping with the way that the Anglican Communion has developed over the past 100 years. It is a modernist attempt to control the change that is happening in all Churches in differing degrees and will be catastrophic for TEC as we try to meet the needs of a post-modern age. It has been voted down by the Church of England, the Episcopal Church of Scotland, and is going to be voted down in New Zealand and Australia. Even the Churches who have split from TEC do not wish to sign on to this poorly constructed attempt to turn the ACC into a magisterial body. We need to send a message loudly and clearly to the Communion that we can and are about being in Communion with one another, but do not need this covenant to do so. The Chicago/Lambeth Quadrilateral still stands as sufficient. Please vote the Anglican Covenant down.

Rev. Pierce said:
“Thus, OUR definition of being a ‘constituent member of the Anglican Communion’ did not include a sense of accountability to the Lambeth Conference.
“The problem is that the 2003 General Convention of the Episcopal Church violated the “c” clause in that 1930 definition.”
Just a second, Rev. Pierce.
If our definition of being a member of the Anglican Communion never included being accountable to the Lambeth conference, then what exactly is the problem?
Why should clause (c) matter at all?
You seem to be suggesting that the Episcopal Church has violated some commitment that we never agreed to in the first place.
Nice try. But wholly unpersuasive.